The Box
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: November 6, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 24 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
10
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireMark Dinning
Movie Marmite. Many will be perplexed. Donnie Darko fans should lap it up. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The Box is a mess, but it's a curiously haunting, intriguing, brain-tickling mess, and it delivers that "Donnie Darko" feeling in truckloads. Or should that be rocketloads? Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This movie kept me involved and intrigued, and for that I'm grateful. I'm beginning to wonder whether, in some situations, absurdity might not be a strength. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The Box is the work of a visionary flirting with commercialism after having so grandly flouted it with “Southland Tales.’’ He doesn’t give in completely. Several trips to the megaplex might be required for The Box to make complete sense. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Whenever The Box threatens to crash, Kelly summons up another haunting image or heartfelt, albeit thin, moral inquiry. It’s an unwieldy, ambitious, one-of-a-kind film waiting for a cult to find it. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The Box turns into a kind of sacrilegious Christian fable; it’s haunted by God, but it delivers a vicious doctrine. At the risk of impoliteness, I would suggest that Kelly drop his reliance on religio-mystico-eschatological humbug and embrace, in realistic terms, the fantastic possibilities in ordinary acts of murder, fear, heroism, and death. If he pulls himself together, he could be the next Hitchcock. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
For his third feature, Richard Kelly delivers neither a triumph (like his first, Donnie Darko) nor a travesty (like his second, Southland Tales) but a sure-handed genre piece that manages to wrap up before its plot mushrooms completely out of control. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Despite its flaws, The Box remains intriguing; however, as its mysteries are solved, the prevailing sense is one of frustration rather than satisfaction. That makes The Box worthy of the dubious label of "an interesting failure." Read full review
60
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
The revelation of the film's mystery just barely makes sense. Yet, we dismiss it as an extended MacGuffin, and thus can delight in the film's devious turns. Read full review
50
VarietyJordan Mintzer
Kelly's trademark mix of sci-fi, surrealism and suburbia occasionally entertains. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
What a shame that Kelly's pacing doesn't run as fast as his imagination. Instead of sweeping you along, The Box just sits there like something unclaimed at lost and found. Damaged goods. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Sincere and sinister and inevitably ambitious, a serious work that insists on its own seriousness even when it edges toward the preposterous. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Kelly is devoted to telling his stories visually -- except when he's not. And the second half of The Box, unfortunately, underscores everything Kelly, as a filmmaker, wants to be and just can't. Read full review
50
SlateJohn Swansburg
The Box plays like "The Pardoner's Tale" as retold by the conspiracy theorist haunting your neighborhood Radio Shack. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It's no coincidence that The Box plays like the world's murkiest Twilight Zone episode. It's loosely based on ''Button, Button,'' a short story by Richard Matheson, who wrote some of the series' greatest scripts. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
An artistic fiasco that cuts across genre lines and all logic to become, perhaps, an instant midnight movie. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
"Southland Tales" was a soporific mess, and while The Box (based on material by novelist Richard Matheson) is superior by a certain margin, Kelly derails his newfound discipline with the usual shimmering portals and hazy notions of apocalyptic sacrifice. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's a mess and it might cost him some career freedom, but at least Kelly hasn't cashed in his trademark narrative complexity for Hollywood pap. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The characters in The Box are like cardboard cutouts: Some have "foolish victim" labeled on them, and others fall into the category of absurdly creepy villain. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The pacing throughout is languid. Your eye becomes fixated on the hideous 70s wallpaper behind them. If only the story's interstellar narrative developments had the intensity of that wallpaper. Rod Serling might've gotten a great hour out of it (the story, that is, not the wallpaper). It simply is not two hours' worth, no matter how many quantum leaps into the unknown Kelly takes. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
What the plot doesn't decimate, the film's slower-than-a-clogged-drain pacing does. Sadly, this is one box that's just not worth picking up off the porch, much less opening, not even for a million dollars. Read full review
30
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The new Richard Kelly movie is basically a sock of coal for Christmas. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
After a slightly promising start, this great-looking but ultimately deeply confusing and unscary sci-fi/horror opus turns into a quite boring rehash of M. Night Shyamalan's post-"Signs" films. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
The Box is its own kind of awful, a disconnected mess that never finds its reason for being. Read full review
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